Whaa Hooo!

[Buddhalux]

Master, us padawans would like to learn the ways of Survival.........

 

[treemanx]

Alot of people dont realize also, that if you have no way to make fire to boil, no filter, no tablets, you can still drink water from creeks and streams with RELATIVE safety from waterbourne crud. One way is called a seepage well, and the other is a basic water filtration device that you can easily set up if you know what to carry. If anyone is interested in hearing about these, tell me and Ill post how they work.

Well as far as this goes, the first is a seepage well. This is made alot easier if you have a little folding trench shovel, but can be done with your hands, the right shaped rock, or the right shaped sturdy piece of wood. OK, you find yourself without a way to purify water for drinking, and you are in desparate need of it. You locate your water source, pond, lake, creek, river, ect.. Anywhere from 3 to 6 feet or so from the edge of the water, at a spot that the level of the water is the closest to the high of the ground, dig yourself a 12 to 18" deep hole. As you get about halfway down, you should begin to see muddy water seeping into the hole your digging. Once youve reached the bottom, you should clearly see the level of the water table around the body of water(meaning the level of the water in your hole is the same height as your water source. The water will be muddy and cloudy at first, and you should immeadiately try to remove or compact any loose debris from the bottom of your well. Let that sit for 5 or 10 minutes, and the sediment clouding the water should fall to the bottom of your well, clearing the water quite a bit. That water, has just been purified/filtered by traveling through the ground and likely rock base. It will be alot safer to drink than drinking it straight from the source, and it will replenish itself as you drink from it. It is also important to try to dig your well at a spot that doesnt look like it has been deficated on by animals who have come to drink there as well. This really does work, and will get you drinking water if your in a pinch.

 

[treemanx]

Master, us padawans would like to learn the ways of Survival.........

The kids in school used to call me Ranger Rick, because of my fascination with survival in the woods. Not trying to come off like I know everything, but I have had a hobby of this since I was a kid. I had read all the FoxFire books by 12, (google them if you havent heard of them, they are awesome)and spent most of my time in the woods.

 

[Buddhalux]

Understandable Tree. I received most of my survival training from the army in the 75th Ranger regiment and mini-SERE course. I'm a city boy, but I soaked up alot of knowledge. When I went down to panama for JOTC the instructors there had me help them set up the booby trap course since I had some solid improvised munitions training that SOCOM required back in the day. It's always funny blowing your buddies up with the secondary or treitary devices that they didn't see. One has to look past the obvious to survive.

 

[treemanx]

Well, to give you an idea of how into this I am, my brother is an 18 Delta Special Forces Medical Sergeant. Hes been in for around 10 years, went through Selection, SERE, and alot of other outdoor survival training, and I still sometimes surprise him with what I know. Its been my only other hobby besides guns since I was knee high to a grasshopper!

 

[treemanx]

The other method I was going to share for purifying water in a pinch requires a little forethought from the person who needs the water. Its allways handy, if you have a camp fire while your hiking/backpacking/surviving to grab and save a few pieces of charcoal from your fire before you leave it. This could come in handy for a multitude of different things you could encounter out there. Charcoal from a fire can be used in addition with some other things to purify water, ease upset stomachs and help to capture out contaminates from your stomach, drawing your direction of travel on rock faces for rescue personel to find, painting black under your eyes in intense sun glare situations, and also mixing with liquified pine sap to create a super strong glue, plus many others.

But for purifying water, there are a few different ways you can use charcoal to do that, but theyre all variations of the same principle. You can set up a stick tripod water filtration drip, where a bag of untreated water hangs above various layers of natural filter levels like sand, charcoal, ect, and then caputre it from the bottom, you can make a survival straw with reeds, grass and charcoal, and in a pinch.....

Turn your pants pocket inside out and tear/cut the pocket off. Begin by putting a layer of charcoal in the bottom of your pocket. Next, there would likely be some sand near your water source, so put a layer of sand on top of the charcoal. On top of that find some clean, green wide bladed grass and pull a hand full of it for your last layer. Fold the grass over itself if needed to fit, and put it right on top of the sand. Now, when you put water into the pocket, it becomes a crude but effective filter, as the water seeping out the bottom has been filtered by all the layers youve added. You have sequentially finer filters, grass, then sand, then charcoal, to remove alot of what might make you sick.

 

[treemanx]

Pm'ed from Muddman--

I like all of your information you are providing in this thread, but on this last part of the charcoal use what would make the water run to the bottom of the pocket instead of leaking out the sides? is there some kind of liner in the pocket?

 

[treemanx]

Very good point, I probably should have clarified in the thread. When you put water to this filter, dunking it in the water is going to get the whole thing wet. After getting it wet and getting water in it, holding it with both hands and squeezing the open top end will help gravity force the water through the filter at the bottom. The water that is forced through the bottom would have gone through the filter, and you can hold that end up to your mouth. The amounts of charcoal, sand, and grass are all things to play with, and also how they are packed into the pocket. Making a kind of bowl out of the charcoal and sand with the grass in the middle will also help with keeping the water going in the right direction. I know this works, Ive even seen it done similarly on Man Vs Wild.

Its not a perfect thing, not much in survival is IMO. But it will put the water you consume through some filtering which will aid alot in not getting sick.

 

[treemanx]

This stuff should probably go in some "tips" thread I guess....

 

[s12tactical]

Im the first to post in this thread! Feels pretty empty in here........
HEEELLLOOOOO!!!!!

Cant wait for this thread to kick off, Im going to start looking for some content to post. Thanks!

I'm glad to finally see a dedicated section for preparedness/survival.

 

[treemanx]

I'm glad to finally see a dedicated section for preparedness/survival.

Ya, thanks coctailer for the suggestion!

 

[eldbillbo]

I think I hear crickets

AH FOOOOD! (for the survivalist)

 

[powersbj]

Let us not forget the old standby of 8 drops of bleach (not the color safe stuff but good old fashion bleach) per gallon of water.

 

[s12tactical]

Let us not forget the old standby of 8 drops of bleach (not the color safe stuff but good old fashion bleach) per gallon of water.

or a couple of iodine drops for every gallon. Good luck trying to find iodine.